I know I've heard "Block Rockin' Beats" before, or at least a lick from it, in a commercial or a radio spot or something. But until now I've never associated it with The Chemical Brothers, probably because I've never heard of them. It's a cool lick. Granted I've only heard 30 seconds of the "song". My snap judgement? Holy shit, I'm about to really hate The Chemical Brothers.
Why? Well, we'll start with "Block Rockin' Beats" because they do. You know this "song" like I know it. You've heard that "do-doot do-doot do-doot do-doot do-do-doot" bass riff before and probably associated it with a fight scene from The Matrix or Equilibrium. By the way, have you guys seen Equilibrium? It's like The Matrix, only way more fun because it totally doesn't take itself ultra-seriously.
Anyhoo, when I come up with what I think might be a cool riff I tend to try to make it into a song. I never succeed, but I always want to do my idea justice. What I should do instead is just play my idea on loop for six minutes, add some drum machine samples and sound effects, then yell, "Back wit anudduh wunna doze block rockin' beats!" fifty times and call it a song. Clearly there are plenty of people willing to do that, and there are plenty of people who like this crap and are willing to call it music to stack up against legitimately good artists. It's stuff like this that makes me feel bad for giving a Fela Kuti album only 2 stars.
On top of that I've only listened to about 2 minutes of the actual album. I've still got more than an hour to go. I can already tell that these songs are several minutes longer that they ever should be. How many times can one man ask, "Who is this doing this synthetic type of alpha beta psychadelic fucking?" before the question loses all its meaning? I will give "Elektrobank" credit for slowing down and doing something different for a couple minutes. I have to wonder why that happened at the tail end of an 8-minute song. Normally when a big-beat artist has another melody chunk it just becomes its own 7-minute looping song, not a new movement in another song.
My goodness! "Setting Sun" seems to have actual, honest to goodness lyrics! Like a verse and chorus structure and everything. I mean, I don't give a shit about lyrics, but that's still a step above what most big-beat albums have.
You know, I'm starting to get the feeling that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Keep saying that to yourself that for six minutes. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. FUCK YOU CHEMICAL BROTHERS!!! IT DOES FUCKING MATTER!!!
Do you know how I wrote the last 2 paragraphs of text? I copy-pasted, obviously. I didn't take the time to write out, "It doesn't matter," 500 times. It's only fitting that I do the entire rest of this review as a copy-paste job, because that's how The Fucking Chemical Brothers made a 6-minute song named "It Doesn't Matter". Scratch that, they made an entire album with that method.
"Lost In The K Hole" gets my vote as easily the best track on Dig Your Own Hole. Partially for being the shortest, but mostly for having an actual song structure beyond, "Play beat, play lick, add effects, repeat endlessly."
I hate this music. I hate everyone. 1 star.
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